(In which our heroine might have the best advisor ever.)
Sorry I've been so absent from the blogosphere! I started PhD school last week, and things have been a little bit busy since then. So I'm updating this in three parts. Part the first: Money matters.
I met with my supervisor, Dr. Lionel Pilkington, on Friday 26 September, ostensibly to set out a course for my PhD work for this semester. We did that-- I'm spending now until Christmas reading all that I can-- and then I mentioned that I was worried about not getting my first stipend payment on time; it was supposed to come that day. At this point, I hadn't gone to the bank to check if it had come (it's a direct deposit) so I wasn't sure if it had or not. Lionel immediately started to get nervous, especially when I mentioned that I won't be able to pay my rent next week if it didn't come, and asked that I come back and let him know whether or not the stipend came through. I went down, checked, and found-- nope, it hadn't come through. Crap. So I went back and told Lionel. He immediately got on the phone with the department secretary, who informed him that, for unknown reasons, everyone except me got their payment. Lionel got very upset about this, calling it a disgraceful and unconscionable situation. I won't go into details, but he spent the next twenty minutes making phone calls and running from office to office.
The end result: I got my stipend check the following Friday, and until then he got me €150 out of the English department petty cash to live on! He was also very concerned that this wouldn't be enough to tide me over, and told me a couple times that if I need more, just go back to the secretary and she'd fork over some more cash for me. (I have to pay it back, of course.)
What an awesome guy! I was incredibly grateful that he immediately went to bat for me like that, jumping out of his way to help me. So I have a supervisor who is passionate about my project, who for some reason is very impressed by my work and believes in me, AND is willing to come to my rescue when I'm having difficulty with the school. What more could I ask for in an advisor?
So I picked up the check on Friday 3 October. They issued it as a check instead of a direct deposit because, theoretically, I should have been able to withdraw from it right away. I took it to the bank, set up a wire transfer to my American bank account (long story involving an overdraft, which should now be taken care of), and asked if I could withdraw from the check. "In an hour or two," was the reply. Ok, I could live with that. But about 6 hours later, I tried to take money out, and the check hadn't cleared yet. It hadn't cleared on Saturday at noon, and now it hasn't cleared yet, 72 hours after depositing it. I'm beginning to be worried that it won't clear for five business days, which is what normally happens with checks here, which will mean that I won't be able to pay my rent until this weekend-- a week and a half late. (Luckily, Julie is very flexible about that sort of thing.) There is, of course, more petty cash available for my living expenses, but still. Uncool.
I really hope that whoever made the mistake-- and last I checked, no one can figure out who to blame-- has straightened things out, and this doesn't happen every month.
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